Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette rubbed what would have been her face. She kind of understood what Basil was talking about, sort of, despite the accent and slang.

"Ugh, zis is one of zose parts of ze mind zings, isn't it?"

[Samantha McManus]

"This is definitely the part of him who was at the wheel when he went arse over teakettle."

[Basil Benson]

He seemed like he was off in some other place now and didn't even notice he was being talked about as if he wasn't present, looking at Colette dreamily. He reached at and started playing with a feather on her fascinator.

[Haley Crusek]

"So...like this is his id or ego or superid or something?" she asked.

"and the other guy was like...the other parts?"

[Samantha McManus]

"His restraint, perhaps."

She gestures to the cuffs.

[Basil Benson]

The Basil narrowed his eyes at Sam a bit while still plucking at Colette's fascinator feather like it was a lute string.

"The Bailey is a knob." He states, more or less confirming her assessment of the situation.

[Colette Rosenhof]

"You are rather satisfied with ze outfit you provided for me, are you not?"

Colette didn't sound TOO annoyed by Basil's actions, she was mostly concerned and not entirely understanding of how minds worked.

[Basil Benson]

He wasn't entirely certain what she meant by that, but he answered anyways.

"You look gorgeous. " He replied in full earnesty. "Dark, and mysterious and full of potential adventure, like the night sky."

He then somewhat ruined his poetic musings. " Though I am a bit concerned about how much glitter you ate t'get that way."

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette's inner galaxy took on a hue like a sunset, or the Carina nebula. It was quite the compliment.

"Worry not. Our concern should be finding zis Bailey boy and setting zings right. Will you assist us?"

[Basil Benson]

He was staring at her for several long, rather awkward moments.

"Hmm?" He queries as he comes out of it. "Oh! Yea, let's go get that tosser and put him back where he belongs!" He replied, though their opinions on that might differ.

He bolted to open the only other door in the room, which lead them out onto a street of what looked like a city. A burrough perhaps? "Ladies, after you, if you're ready."

Upon stepping out into the street, the three girls would be greeted with a city block that looked as if it had been ripped straight out of the pages of a gothic fiction penny dreadful. The streets weren't exactly filthy, but they weren't exactly spotless either.

There was no one else in the streets with them. While this may not have been unusual given the circumstances, what *was* unusual is that everything was set up as if it wasn't and one day all the people who lived here simply disappeared all at once. Shop doors were open to invite visitors in with no shopkeepers to sell wares. Flats had warm, cheery fires burning inside with no one to attend them. Carriage Taxis and their horse's gear stood at the ready, with no coach or horse.

The buildings were homey and friendly, as if crying out for one to come inside and take a peek.

[Samantha McManus]

"...well," she muses as she walks along, "this isn't creepy or anything."

"Unless..."

She holds her palm out in front of her mouth and blows. Dream logic holding, a cloud of dust blows off of her palm and expands out far larger than it has any right to be, passing through the 'empty' street.

[Basil Benson]

"Don't!!!" He cried out, but it was too late to stop her. She had revived the neighborhood, and it was more than willing to tell his secrets to them.

The dust had a strange reaction to the neighborhood, causing everything it touched to become modern and brimming with life. A dark haired boy with bright blue eyes was seen repeatedly through-out the streets, like a plague of wirey, lively scouts. He was at various stages in life right up to the cusp of manhood. Given the example of what he had grown into, these boys had to be reflections of Basil himself. These boys were often present with people no one but Basil would be familiar with, save two.

The Red-headed man whom Colette knew to be Howard existed too here in various stages of life, though none ever younger than a young man himself. Every version of him seemed to be keeping little Basil safe. Having a smoke and watching him closely while Basil danced and sang showtunes on the sidewalk to him, grabbing him by the shoulder as he tried to step out into the street, taking a kitchen knife away from a Basil who was ill advisedly waving it around like he was a swashbuckler just inside one of the shop windows.

Colette would also recognize several versions of his mother Jessica also amid several different activities at the same time at various points along the street. Cleaning a Basil's face with spit and then fidgeting with his clothes on one corner, standing next to a lamppost obviously scolding him about something elsewhere.

The most unusual occurrence of his mother was in a doorway, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the left side of the door jamb. The weird part was that leaning on the opposite side of the door-frame was a young woman just coming into adulthood who held a passing resemblance to her, dressed in the sort of gothic garb that was popular not but a few years ago. It couldn't be a reflection of her, the wardrobe was far too recent. And Basil was an only child as far as Colette knew. A niece perhaps? After a moment, Jessica passed her cigarette to the unnamed girl, and the anonymous female took a drag before handing the cigarette back to Basil's mother.

This girl would appear in a few other places as well. Drinking alcohol straight from the bottle alone on a stoop, walking by herself up the street with a hood pulled over her head and her hands in her pockets, admiring herself in a mirror inside one of the shop windows while wearing something just as shiny and tight as Colette's own outfit.

There were also other 'repeat people' that absolutely no one knew, though they could take guesses at who they might be to Basil.

A stern looking man kept looking at them from a variety of positions up and down the street, in and out of shops, but what he was watching for wasn't apparent. He bore no resemblance to Basil and as such, it was difficult to guess who he might have been. In one instance, the stern man was yelling at an elderly couple inside of a home, but with so many people in the streets right now, what they were fighting about couldn't be heard.

The Elderly couple dominated the neighborhood, only seconded by Basil himself. There were tons of the pair of them all over the place. The Old man inside a home window with a nearly asleep,tiny Basil sitting in his lap as he talked, the two reading together on a bench, the elder a newspaper and the younger a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Old Man pushing behind his bicycle and letting go, forcing Basil to ride without his training wheels, the old man and the boy sharing a bag of jelly babies.

Nearby to them, the old woman could be found sharing tea with Basil inside a home's window, in another making arts and crafts together, and in another playing doubles on a piano.

For his part, the aspect of Basil they'd up to now been working with, the Bohemian, was obviously trying to tune out these people as he kept turning away only to be faced with more of them. And so it finally came that he had to focus on one scene in order to drown out all the others that were currently playing out in front of him.

A little Basil wearing a yarmulke pulled the drapes open on a window, and excitedly placed a menorah there for the rest of the neighborhood to see. With the assistance of the older gentleman they lit a Shamash candle, then the six other candles that were larger than normal together, and placed the Shamash back in it's proper home in the middle. The older woman and Basil's mother joined them, though Jessica seemed less than thrilled to be involved. Together, they began to recite something none of them but the Bohemian would technically understand, but Sam would probably get the jist of what was going on here.

"Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha'olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah."

In kind, the Bohemian would inch closer to the window, and continue into the next blessing with them.

"Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha'olam, she’asah nisim l’avoteinu, b’yamim haheim bazman hazeh..." He added. The young man slowly leant his head against the glass and started to cry.

[Haley Crusek]

Haley looked around, bewildered. "How the hell did you know to do that?" she asked Sam.

[Samantha McManus]

"That ah... wasn't what I expected."

"See, I just figured they were all... invisible."

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette tried to take it all in. So many memories happening at once, and without context, it was scary yet wonderful at the same time. Kind of like a Thomas Kincade painting. But there was one thing out of place, and something she didn't ignore. Her heels clacked softly on the cobblestones as she approached the Bohemian and gently places her hands upon his shoulders, rubbing them. She didn't say anything, she just let him cry.

[Basil Benson]

Basil was watching the family lost in his own sorrow when Colette reached out for him. He jumped and shied a bit at the touch from not expecting it, but he didn't fully recoil when he realized it was Colette. As she was rubbing his shoulders he began rubbing violently at his eyes to get himself to stop.

Sam was right that the memories were invisible, but not just to outsiders. Basil was trying to hide them from everyone, himself included.

"Why couldn't things stay the same?! Why was I the one who had to get sick?! Nobody else in my bloody family is like this, why did it have to be me?!" Apparently that 'stopping being upset' thing wasn't going according to plan.

[Haley Crusek]

"You were sick?" she asked.

[Samantha McManus]

"Or is that what you think being a mutant is?"

[Basil Benson]

Apparently Sam was on the nose.

"This place is an asylum, you know. It's Bedlam with kinder orderlies. They send us here when we're too much to handle anymore. And when mistresses and masters run out of things to fill your head with, Lord only knows what happens next. Especially if you're not useful."

[Samantha McManus]

Sam's avatar frowns.

"...you don't get to lecture me on what's an asylum, get me?"

[Haley Crusek]

"Being a mutant isn't a disease," Haley frowned.

[Colette Rosenhof]

"Basil..." Colette said in a soft voice. "My fazer, he works twice as hard as all of his coworkers for half of zeir pay, simply because he is a mutant. My parents could have let me live at home for ze rest of my life. And I would have been happy zere. But zey worked, and zey scraped, and zey did wizout just to make ze funds zey needed so zat I could come here and get ze education zat no ozer school would provide for someone like me. Zis is not an asylum, it is an opportunity ze likes of which few ever get. You are not sick, you have a unique gift, one zat you will learn to control in time.

"Did you know zat, outside, your are visible right now?"

[Basil Benson]

His body got all tensed up again and he burst out into tears this time out of frustration. It probably wouldn't be surprising though, assuming Sam's thoughts on the situation were true and this little bit of Basil had no ability to restrain himself.

If Colette hadn't intervened he'd probably be yelling at them again. Focusing on her seemed to calm him down, but her closing statements left him extremely confused.

"What do you mean... outside?" He asked, seemingly not grasping the concept of what Colette was telling him fully.

"Outside of the city?"

[Colette Rosenhof]

Colette looked to the more experienced head-divers for assistance. She had the feeling she said something she shouldn't have.

[Samantha McManus]

"At the Halloween dance. When you passed out, you turned visible."

[Basil Benson]

He furrowed his brow very deeply to try to come to terms what they were telling him, but it seemed to be eluding him. There was definitely some kind of disconnect going on here.

"What, you mean like opposite of when I do this?" Basil stood in front of them for a moment and stared before disappearing entirely, clothes and all. When he did, the whole neighborhood shut down once again turning to it's former state and causing Sam's dust to lose it's magic.

[Haley Crusek]

"Yeah...the opposite of that."

[Basil Benson]

Basil didn't reply to Haley's confirmation of the situation, nor did he reappear again after she had done so.

[Samantha McManus]

"Are you going to reappear, or am I going to have to blow the dust again?"

[Basil Benson]

Out of sight out of mind. For Colette, once there was no longer a Basil present (or what roughly passed for one here) she would completely forget what the three of them were there for.

For a moment, Haley would start to feel confused as well. She was certain she came to help Sam with something very important, but the important reason was eluding her.

Sam would feel a mental fog trying to force it's way into her defenses as well, right up until her threat.

"Bweeheeheeheeheeheehee!" He tittered at her comment and the illusion shattered, everyone remembering simultaneously what was happening.

"Oh, bollocks!" He cried out, then revealed his smug self. "Almost had you!" He exclaimed in good nature.

[Samantha McManus]

"...alright, who's for finding his minder?"

[Colette Rosenhof]

If Colette had a face, it would have been confused, then surprised, then perhaps a little sour.

"Oui, zis has gone on long enough. Come along young man."

[Basil Benson]

"Yes madam!" He replied, seemingly complacent enough with her at least. As long as she wasn't getting on his case about something.

It took him a moment to remember what they were doing himself.

"Oh! The Bailey." He replies. "Yes... any ideas how to find him?"

[Samantha McManus]

"...well, isn't it obvious?"

"Break the law."

[Basil Benson]

Basil stared at Sam for a moment. "Ain't no laws here poppet, that's why he's angry. I do what I want. He hates that."

[Samantha McManus]

"Really? Then he won't mind me doing this?"

She walks over to a shop window and tries to put her fist through it.

[Colette Rosenhof]

"Ooh, zis is like being back home!" Colette clapped her hands together,Her heels clicking against the cobblestones a short distance away. It was an odd sight, the woman dressed as she was, wrenching a trash bin from the ground and raising it above her head.

"Sous les pavés, la plage!" She cried as she hurled the thing toward another shop window, garbage spilling out into the air as it flew.

[Haley Crusek]

"Finally something I'm good at!" Haley smirked, gazing at a *very* old car parked on the side of the street and sending it crashing into a streetlight with her TK.

[Basil Benson]

"Anarchy in the UK!" The bohemian proclaimed triumphantly, ready to cause some mayhem. Pulling a piece of chalk from his pocket, he began to scrawl onto the streets exactly the sort of immature phallic imagery one expects out of a boy in his teens with too much pent up testosterone.

No one act caused a reaction, but once the reflection of Basil finished his artwork and was considering it with a self satisfied expression on his face, a tinny PA system squelched to life.

""Vandalizing public property is a violation of the law and erodes the collective moral fiber of the community." a voice explained."Stop it." The voice added in a casual tone that made it's demand rather lackluster.

[Colette Rosenhof]

"... no?"

A lackluster demand prompted a lackluster response.